The recently upgraded and extended Dunning Primary School is being officially opened on Friday 6 February 2009 by the Scottish Government's Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, Fiona Hyslop MSP.

The £4.3m project, designed by Perth & Kinross Council architects, has seen the five-classroom school brought under one roof and its learning and teaching facilities transformed.

New pupil break-out areas, library, gym hall, support spaces, toilets and cloakroom areas, as well as other ancillary accommodation, have been created through the refurbishment and extension of the school. Facilities in the school will be available for community use on a bookable basis.

The new build section of the school has a contemporary design that respects its surroundings and provides natural daylight and ventilation to the teaching areas and gym hall.

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The upgrade project has also put environmentally-friendly design at its heart with a range of green technology installed including automatic lighting controls and solar panels to pre-heat water.

For the duration of the construction phase, from November 2007 to October 2008, pupils and staff were decanted off-site to the Community School of Auchterarder while contractors Mansell were at work.

The school and the Council were keen for pupils to learn from the experience of the project. To ensure this could happen while the school was decanted, a pupil visiting group was set up. The group of eight children made regular supervised visits to the building site and prepared newsletters that were distributed to pupils, parents and staff.

A user group, involving Council and community representatives, also met regularly throughout the project to discuss the details of the work and monitor progress.

The Cabinet Secretary said: "Dunning Primary now embraces all that is new and good in environmental design and sets a good example of what can be achieved in creating learning spaces for the 21st Century. This Government expects that in only four years, 100,000 more school pupils will be benefiting from a 21st Century education delivered in cutting-edge schools just like this."

Lindsay Cowan, Regional Director for Mansell said: "The design of the extension is exciting and modern looking and yet is very sympathetic to the existing building, and the design team deserve all the accolades that they must surely be receiving, as the end result looks wonderful."

(GK/JM)